McCaffery: Clock seems to be ticking on coach's tenure

PHILADELPHIA ­— As the Eagles plunged from their Super Bowl high of 2004 to the fool’s gold of the century’s second decade, two truths endured. One was a tribute to Andy Reid, the other not so much. Neither applies any more.

The first was that no matter what would happen to the Eagles, Reid would be fine. He could argue that he’d strengthened a floppy program, even if he’d done it with so much talent discovered by Ray Rhodes. He could flash his Super Bowl ring, even if it was silver, not gold. He wasn’t yet 50, had coached in multiple NFC finals. When others had howled out warnings, he’d committed to Donovan McNabb in the draft, then developed him into a Pro Bowl quarterback.

By then, Reid was coaching the Eagles on his terms, playing a savior role, rising in his industry, professionally indestructible. At that time, he could have signed the irrepressible Terrell Owens, tolerated the corresponding static and ridden him to a Super Bowl --- then punted him, just because the whole situation was an annoyance. Why not? He was Andy Reid. And it was true that were he to leave the Eagles --- by his choice, or by somebody else’s --- his cellphone in-box would be rammed with job offers before he’d reached the parking lot.

Later, as Reid’s career flattened and the Eagles began to dip in NFL stature, there was another presumed certainty. It was that, were Reid to be fired, the most glamorous of head coaching candidates would so stampede to Jeffrey Lurie’s office for interviews that added NovaCare Complex security would be required. Though not the sparkling standard Lurie had claimed, the Eagles nonetheless were usually nicely positioned for some championship runs. Invariably, no less disinterested an entity as Las Vegas would plop the Birds at the top of its future-book boards. Lombardi trophies, the Eagles were short on. Players? Those, they had.

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Consider, now, those corollaries. Do that, and there is only one conclusion: Neither necessarily fits.

Reid is no longer the trending NFL coaching superstar. He’d be 55 before anyone hired him --- hardly old, but not quite showroom glittering. If he is fired at season’s end, he will un-wrinkle a resume that includes two 8-8 records since 2004, a 6-10 pip, the 2012 season that is on a .429 winning pace and no postseason victories since 2008.

He will be viewed as the re-inventor of Michael Vick, a move that aggravated a massive chunk of his fan base, and which is not likely to yield a championship after all. He will pay for his decision --- even if it was a deeply thought-out professional plan --- to be a secretive on-camera presence for 14 years with a deep lack of concern about that image. He’s not the 46-year-old Super Bowl coach any more.

If he goes, and that’s how it’s looking, Reid will have left a deteriorating roster, one without a franchise quarterback, leaking from years of questionable drafting, caked with overpriced free agents, likely to squat behind R.G. III and Eli Manning in the NFC East for years. Lurie will be able to find a coach. Money. Leave it at that. But he might have to do a little more recruiting than it once seemed.

After a 30-17 loss Sunday to the Atlanta Falcons, Reid was asked if he thought another voice would help the Eagles. “No,” he said. “I’m going to keep doing that.” But if he goes 8-8, or anything similar to that, the locker-room voice won’t be his to raise.

Will Reid land someplace in the NFL? Of course. Everybody in that profession is recycled. Two words: Turner, Norv. But he may have to do some campaigning.

Will the Eagles find a coach, and a good one? Of course. But the cream of the profession will look at Reid’s tattered roster and the changing division and count to 10 before taking Lurie’s first offers.

That is the new reality for a coach and a franchise that are not so hot any more.